Will New York Be a Sanctuary for Immigrants?

This week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions threatened to take back $4 billion in federal aid to sanctuary cities, including New York City, Syracuse, Ithaca, and Rochester. Those cities have said they will not help Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) enforce federal immigration laws.

Sanctuary cities refuse to use police in immigration raids, won’t allow federal immigration authorities to access school and other records to find undocumented immigrants, and won’t hold immigrants in jail for ICE to pick them up. However, if someone is already in prison, they will generally turn them over to ICE. They also generally won’t ask immigrants if they are documented.

So what just happened?

On Monday, Attorney General Sessions announced that local and state governments will need to comply with federal law and turn over undocumented immigrants. Governments that don’t work with ICE would lose access to $4 billion in Justice Department grants. New York State received $218 million from those grants last year.

What’s the argument?

Sessions and other Republicans say that sanctuary policies make cities less safe. However, the Fraternal Order of Police, the largest police union in America, says that if Sessions cuts funding from sanctuary cities, that will actually make cities less safe. Many law enforcement officers have advocated sanctuary policies to enable police to focus on stopping crime, rather than finding undocumented immigrants. The policies also encourage immigrant communities to cooperate to solve crime. A new study by University of California San Diego Professor Tom Wong agrees, finding that sanctuary counties actually experience lower crime.